Finding the Best New Music

ALL IS NOT LOST

MATTHEW DEAR – HER FANTASY

Electro music guru Matthew Dear has been around for as long as LCD’s James Murphy, but I had never heard Dear’s music before, so of course he is up for comparison to an artist I know, and LCD seems like a shoe-in. Her Fantasy, like LCD’s greatest songs, takes a six-minute-plus, mid-tempo song, and miraculously makes it chug forward with incredible excitement. Her Fantasy, also like LCD, takes clear influence from Talking Heads and David Bowie, especially in the choice for vocal manipulation. This song would have fit in seamlessly into Murphy’s last album This Is Happening (and would have even added to its awesomeness). There is just something great about how Dear uses those atmospheric synths with the drum machine and vocal loop. The resulting sound hypnotizes you to follow until the very last seconds. Not any moment of the six minutes and thirteen seconds seems superfluous, and I would have been happy to let it continue. It is great to know that since Murphy has retired, there are still geniuses in the genre continuing their art.